When marshals arrived at Leonard Francis’ San Diego home Sunday, they found he had cut off his GPS bracelet and fled, two weeks before his sentencing hearing. The whereabouts of the Malaysian contractor’s three sons, who lived with him, were unclear. Ports, airports and the nearby southern border with Mexico were alerted, but law enforcement officials conceded that Francis may have already fled the country. The Regional Fugitive Task Force and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are reportedly assisting in the manhunt. After being arrested in 2013 in a San Diego hotel room as part of a federal sting operation, Francis pleaded guilty to a massive corruption scheme in which naval officers were fed food, drink and sex for pay, and in return looked after US Navy ships. as large as aircraft carriers, were diverted to his Singapore-based company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, for service. The case, which cost the Navy $35 million, is known as the “Fat Leonard” scandal, a reference to Francis’ body size. The US Marshals Service’s San Diego office posted a wanted alert on Twitter on Tuesday. “The San Diego Fugitive Squad is looking for Leonard Francis aka ‘Fat Leonard.’ “Francis, who was under house arrest and being monitored by US FBI, cut off his GPS bracelet and left his home,” the statement said. Francis’ attorney, Devin Burstein, declined to comment. Francis was a cooperating witness for federal prosecutors in their cases against senior naval officers. His own sentencing hearing had been repeatedly postponed but was due to take place on September 22. Francis’ home confinement arrangements have been highly unusual since he was released from prison in 2018 to undergo cancer treatment. He was being watched by a private security company, paid for by Francis himself, who on a previous occasion had been found to have left the house unsecured when a security guard went out to eat. In the days before his disappearance, neighbors had seen U-Haul rental trucks coming and going to Francis’ home, according to Deputy Supervising U.S. Marshal Omar Castillo. “He was planning this, that’s for sure,” Castillo told the San Diego Union-Tribune. In December 2020, a judge in federal district court in San Diego ordered a review of security arrangements at Francis’ home after a court official did a routine check and found no security guard there for more than two hours. The guard later said he had gone on a lunch break.
